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Gilé fire, 12 September 2018 Gilé, Ribaué, Murrupula

Out · last detection 24 Sept 2018, 22:59 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2018 in Gilé, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,284 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 60th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 6 in Mozambique in 2018, of 220.

Burnt area
25,284ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
12 Sept 2018 – 23 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
12 Sept
2018
Heat detections
1,545
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
15.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Sept 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021222324

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
53km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 1 Oct.

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,878 ha in 2016, 12,002 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,134 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gilé where it started
    16,752 ha reached on 7 Sept
    1.8 %
  2. Ribaué
    4,439 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.7 %
  3. Murrupula
    4,212 ha reached on 17 Sept
    1.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Sept 29.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Sept 29.1 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept 31.2 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 22.3 °C 67 % 34 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 4
11 Sept 23.5 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
12 Sept 29.2 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Sept 30.4 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Sept 31.6 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept 32.7 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Sept 32.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Sept 32.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Sept 32.5 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Sept 32.3 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Sept 33.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept 32.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Sept 29.7 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Sept 30.9 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Sept after 31.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Sept after 32.3 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Sept after 34.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Sept after 33.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Sept after 33.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Sept after 33.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Sept after 28.2 °C 46 % 53 km/h 2.8 mm Moderate 13
1 Oct after 27.1 °C 52 % 45 km/h 3.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 5 Sept 2018
After · 30 Sept 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 1,545Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gilé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 September 2018 and 23 September 2018: 12 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,284 hectares (252.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Gilé (16,752 ha, 1.8 %); Ribaué (4,439 ha, 0.7 %); Murrupula (4,212 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mozambique (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.